10 Angry Robots You Shouldn’t Let Inside Your Home

Some robots play soccer. Others just want a hug. But at Robogames 2012 last weekend, all eyes were on combat robots. Better known as combots, these hulking masses of metal and rubber battle to the death, vying for gold medals in boxing-style weight classes.

It’s sort of like the robot version of the Olympics, but the focal point of Robogames, held at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in California, is its combat arena. Inside a 40-square-foot, Lexan-enclosed battlefield, combots weighing as much as 220 pounds duke it out while spectators scream for blood -- or dismembered robot parts? -- on the sidelines.

"There is definitely something visceral and addicting about the combat robots," Simone Davalos, the organizer of Robogames, told Wired. "Combat is the gateway drug that gets kids into designing and building for other events, and I'm incredibly happy when we can inspire people in that way."

In case it isn’t clear enough already, these aren’t the kind of robots you take home to vacuum your floors. No, the 10 combots we feature here should be best enjoyed from the safety of your computer chair. Enjoy the photos!

Original Sin is a Robogames staple. It’s competed in every Robogames event (which got its start as ROBOlympics in 2004) and also each year at a separate ComBots Cup event, a combots-only competition held each fall. This robot has pwned both events for three years running -- and is entering a fourth year of total robot domination, as it won the heavyweight division of the 2012 Robogames.

“It’s very controllable, very nimble, very fast and powerful,” Gary Gin, Original Sin’s master and builder said. “It gets under the other robots and slams them against the wall.”

Simple, yet effective.

Gin said that no major changes have been made to the 220-pound heavyweight since last year. And it hasn’t taken much damage since the last time it competed -- something a number of other robot makers in attendance probably wish they could say about their fighters.

Last Rites

Last Rites (in blue trunks above) is a fearsome, 220-pound robot that other robot trainers dread going up against. Depending on the opponent, Last Rites is outfitted with either a 75-pound spinning bar, or a 60-pound aluminum bar. They use the 75-pound bar for wedges, and the 60-pound bar for weapon-to-weapon hits. Inside, Last Rites boasts a 40-horsepower engine.

Last Rites has been competing since 2001. And although it has historically inflicted some serious damages to both other robots and the arena itself, it’s no stranger to taking its own hits.

”If you take damage, you have to keep repairing it until you’re out,” Hardcore Robotics team member Rick Russ told Wired as he operated on Last Rites. “We tore a wheel off of this one and blew a weapons motor. We also wiped out two drive motors.”

Sewer Snake is a 214-pound monster (and nine-time championship winner) whose drive train was inspired by four-wheel offroading. Six wheels ensure it can keep rolling even if a few wheels are punctured by spikes or circular blades.

This robot, built by Matt and Wendy Maxham, has modular, interchangeable weapons that can be swapped out between matches depending on the next opponent’s design. For example, a pair of spikes combined with a lifter could be perfect for battling a wedge-shaped robot. But against spinner-robots, the Maxhams will deploy shock-mounted wedges instead. It’s got a flame thrower as well, but it’s mostly used for show -- against robots at least. Matt Maxham said it would burn a person pretty thoroughly.

Yikes.

The most important component on Sewer Snake is the lifter. “If the lifter breaks, the robot can’t self-right itself if it gets flipped over, and I can’t drive,” Maxham said. If you can’t drive, you’re stuck, and you lose the match.

The Raging Scotsman

A group of tech-minded teenagers from northern California’s Piedmont High School donned purple kilts to show their school spirit with their equally spirited purple robot, The Raging Scotsman. (Piedmont High's mascot is the Highlander.)

The Raging Scotsman is a 220-pound heavyweight. The whole thing is made out of aluminum, and it’s got quarter-inch, shock-mounted steel wedges on the front. But the Scotsman’s weapon of choice? A 15-foot flamethrower it can use to burninate the innards of enemy robots. It uses its wedge to lift up robots, then shoots flames at their sometimes-vulnerable underbellies.

Inside it’s got dual 4-horsepower motors that keep it powering forward against competitors. The Raging Scotsman achieved a string of successes at this year’s Robogames.

Antweight and Fleaweight Robots

You don’t have to weigh 220 pounds to be a robotic menace. These tiny one-pound and half-pound robots -- the antweight and fleaweight classes -- are tiny terrors.

Modeled just like their larger counterparts, they’ve got wheels, wedges, and speedy motors, but they fit in the palm of your hand rather than on a dolly.

Above is the “Antweight and Fleaweight Rumble,” a free-for-all of high-speed miniature robot madness.

Sabretooth 6.0

10-year-old Jason Vasquez, a member of team Fast Electric Robots, helped make this 60-pound lightweight robot combat-ready. It has a big, red vertical blade, four-wheel drive, and a wedge for edging underneath competitors.

”It’s a pretty good robot,” Vasquez told Wired. In addition to helping in its construction, he mans the controls when it goes into the fighting arena. “Its blade does a lot of damage. I’ve destroyed people’s batteries, and torn their wedges off.”

Never get between a robot and its whirring blade.

Son of Ziggy

Son of Ziggy is the 120-pound “offspring” of CM Robotics’ Ziggy, a 340-pound super heavyweight. Son of Ziggy has a magnesium chassis with titanium armor. And like its namesake, Son of Ziggy uses a 4,500-PSI pneumatic flipper and a wedge-shaped appendage to slide underneath competitors, and then pop them onto their backs, leaving them scrambling to find their footing.

The heavyweight competition is notorious for inflicting serious damage to participants. Since last year’s Robogames, Son of Ziggy has gone through radical changes, mostly to create more serviceable, modular hardware, and to increase durability.

Simba’s Revenge is a fresh-faced, 185-pound heavyweight just cutting its teeth at Robogames. It’s made of carbon steel with aircraft armor all the way around, and has an articulated drum spinner that can rise up and down to inflict damage to other bots. And it inflict it did -- to the tune of three wins last weekend.

”I’ve attended a bunch of times and pit-crewed for some people, but this year I decided to make one and try a bunch of ideas out,” Simba’s Revenge’s creator David Randolph said.

For next year, Randolph plans on bulking up on his armor and putting a better spinner on the front. Nonetheless, the articulated spinner was a big factor in forcing other heavyweights to beg for mercy this year.

TSA Inspected

Hailing from our Canadian neighbors to the north, TSA Inspected is a six-year Robogames veteran, and a two-time gold medal champion in the middleweight division.

TSA Inspected is built by five students from the University of Toronto. The 119-pound robot has two horns that can grab an opponent, and flip it either into or over the walls of the arena.

”TSA Inspected’s biggest weapon is its high-strength steel. It’s the same armor used on Humvees to make it bulletproof,” Paul Giampuzzi, the team’s alumni adviser, told Wired. “We’re also using new-technology lithium batteries that are used with hybrid cars.”

Sounds like a deadly efficient combination.

Wolverine

How about a robot that resembles a horseshoe crab?

The Sierra College Mechatronics Department attempted to mitigate harm to its bot by using circles and triangles as its shape inspiration. Wolverine weighs 120 pounds, and dons armor made of high-density polyethylene.

”It gives us an opportunity to protect everything, the batteries and the wheels, and still have a spinning weapon in the front,” team member Chuck Ferguson told Wired. Ah, yes. Because having a steel bar with sharpened tips isn’t enough -- you must also have a horizontal spinning blade at the front of your robot, too.